| Blue Catfish Record Shattered By 120-lb. Beast From Holt Reservoir |
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| By Nick Carter |
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Posted Tuesday April 24 2012, 2:37 PM |
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Typically, perfect conditions make for good fishing, but in the case of Alabama’s new 120-lb., 4-oz. state record blue catfish, it was poor water conditions and the unavailability of bait that made it all possible.
The new record holder, John Paul Nichols, of Samantha, said he and his good fishing buddy Robbie Tierce usually fish upriver this time of year on the Black Warrior River. But, on March 9, the river was way up and all the floodgates were open at the top end of Holt Reservoir. They couldn’t fish where they wanted to, so they ran downriver to find a place out of the main current.
John Paul and Robbie anchored on the west side of the river and sunk their baits in a 60-foot deep hole in some slack water off the main river. Earlier—because they didn’t think they’d be able to catch bait and because Winn Dixie was out of chicken livers—Robbie had bought some chicken gizzards. So that’s what John Paul said they were fishing on 40-lb. test mono, 8-ozs. of lead and an 8/0 circle hook.
It was just after dark, and the lines had been out for about 20 minutes when the fish bit. Robbie and John Paul were getting ready to grill up a tenderloin when they notice the rod looked a little odd.
“The rod just got a little bit off kilter and just didn’t look right,” said John Paul. “It looked like a little old limb or something had floated into the line or something.”
John Paul said he wanted to leave the rod where it was, but Robbie made him check it.
“You could tell there was a fish on there, but it felt like it was wrapped around a log. And it was heavy, I mean bad heavy,” said John Paul.
John Paul went to work on the fish, and Robbie went back to work on their supper... until the fish started swimming in earnest.
“I said, ‘Robbie, I ain’t going to lie to you, but whatever we got on here is one of them, and it’s huge,’” said John Paul. “It was like pulling a round bale of hay from the bottom of the river, and when he decided he wanted to go down to the bottom, he went to the bottom.”
John Paul said the fight lasted 15 to 20 minutes. The first time the fish surfaced at the back of the boat, Robbie tried to net it with the giant landing net they keep on the boat, but the fish wouldn’t fit. Then the fish dove and circled to the front of the boat. Somehow it didn’t wrap in the anchor line.
John Paul told Robbie to be ready because he had a plan for the next time the fish surfaced.
“I’m going to lay my rod down, and I’m going to stick both hands into his mouth, and when I do you have to grab hold of me, because this fish isn’t getting away,” John Paul told Robbie.
Thankfully it didn’t come to that. The next time the fish surfaced, Robbie was able to get its head in the net, and with John Paul’s help they hauled the fish into the boat.
From there the fish took a ride. John Paul initially planned to keep the fish alive and release it in a buddy’s pond once he had it officially weighed and measured. However, before it was all said and done, the fish ended up covered in ice in an old bathtub in the back of John Paul’s truck. He said the tub has been in his family for years, and he uses it to keep bait.
John Paul’s catfish measured just shy of 5 feet long at 59 1/4 inches, and it had a girth of 39 inches.
The fish was certified by District 3 DCNR Fisheries Supervisor Jay Haffner. It shattered the old record of 111 pounds, which was caught from Lake Wheeler in 1996 and held the world record at the time. The current world record, from Buggs Island Lake in Virginia, is 143 pounds.
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